Well-known Member

Ironic that both are more namesakes now and that B&W are not big on bass (or at least 'exaggerating' it) and it's at the lower registers that it's particularly needed in TVs of late.
It'll be interesting to see if this new design ends up somewhat in line with B&O for a speaker size that isn't trying to defy the laws of physics to produce what's needed.

Active Member

I agree - B&W and Philips are suggesting they're offering something new and that the problem hasn't already been solved.

The B&O Eclipse is so far ahead in terms of sound quality compared to other TVs that it's not even a fair comparison. It's more like a TV attached to an audio system than the other way around. That comes at a price obviously, and the best the B&W and Philips can hope for is to get somewhere near B&O's performance at an affordable price for the rest of us!

Well, I’ve had many Philips TVs going back to the PalPlus CRTs, which obviously had room for decent sounding speakers as the TV could act as big speaker enclosure. Even bigger as the TV screen size grow to 32”+, my last was the 32PW9617/05. These all sounded very good for everyday use, however, I’ve always had a separate AV Amp and Speakers, which a TV should in my opinion NOT try to replace. When I switched to Philips first high-end LCD TVs it had the then new NXT flat speakers, the Cineos 32PF9830/10, which also sounded very good. This was followed by the more conventional 32PF9986/12, then the 42PFL9803H/10 and finally the 40PFL9704H/12, yes a smaller but better HD picture. These all had very good sound indeed... Last year I was blown away with the new OLED and have a 55POS9002/05, which is by far the best picture I’ve every seen...

So why I have said all the above?, well the sound from the ‘razer thin’ OLED TV is really rather poor compared to all previous Philips TVs - it’s weak across the full spectrum, especially bass and I don’t mean ultra low bass that dominates much modern music :-(
My relatively small (WxHxD - 29x19x9 cm) Pure DAB kitchen stereo radio actually sounds quite a bit better, which is a crazy state of affairs. Of course, as I have a separate AV Amp and 6 large Speakers, the fronts being large enough not to need a Sub, I really don’t mind. When watching news and some mainly voice only programming the TV sound is OK and when I need to I can switch to the Amp. Philips only provide one optical audio out which can’t handle the highest multi-channel sound if they had provided an audi only HDMI output like high-end Blu-ray players.

Philips are obviously aware of this sound issue, as they now have a nice low profile sound bar for £850 - the B8/12 Fidelio Nano, Amazon now offer this as a bundle for this TV. This is so low in profile it doesn’t block the picture when the TV is on its low stand. I thought about it, but it’s rather expensive to make up for poor inbuilt sound and would add a bit of clutter to my setup. The TV is <5 mm thick for around a third of its height from the top down, with the rest then only 47.5mm so there’s not much room for speakers, however, more could have been done. I hope that the B&W partnership will help both to keep the TV profiles reasonably small but with much better sound built in and then also provide add on units for those that don’t have separate high-end home cinema AV Amp and speakers...

Active Member

With tpv having acquired the Philips audio license from Gibson (or was it woox?) I was hoping for something like the magnetically detachable speakers for the rear channels - like the B5 soundbar or E5 speakers. Maybe an OLED panel sold cheaply without any speakers, with different optional magnetic speaker packs coming in slim design or 5.1 or whatever.

Active Member

With tpv having acquired the Philips audio license from Gibson (or was it woox?) I was hoping for something like the magnetically detachable speakers for the rear channels - like the B5 soundbar or E5 speakers. Maybe an OLED panel sold cheaply without any speakers, with different optional magnetic speaker packs coming in slim design or 5.1 or whatever.

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I do like the magnetically detachable speakers, I feel they offer a better sound option and there is a definite noticeable difference between 8601 and 7601 models in everyday use - its hard to find the balance for customers , as everybody wants something different - soundbars, amps etc and unfortunately because of this one size doesn't fit all!